Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to analyzing liquid flow and liquid-solid interface interaction and more particularly to an integrated device for self-contained liquid flow and liquid-solid interface interaction analysis that enables the comparison with and the validation of computational models of such liquid solid interactions.
Background Description
Hydrocarbon fuels, e.g., oil and natural gas, are valuable commodities. It is important to understand how oil is situated and flowing in an oil field in order to make decisions about, for example, where to drill, how deep to drill, how many wells to drill, as well as how to chemically enhance hydrocarbon recovery in such fields. Thus, major resources may be expended in modeling a field to facilitate making these dimensions. While a typical computer model may be used to simulate the field, the simulations may not allow engineers to sufficiently visualize and study the relevant field properties, in particular on smaller length scales, e.g., one centimeter (1 cm) and below. Instead a model that accounts for the physical/chemical properties on much smaller length scales may be necessary. While a typical hydrocarbon reservoir model may mimic some of the typical field properties at ambient conditions on large lengths scales, e.g. meters to kilometers, to facilitate visualizing such reservoir properties to some extent, the model may not account for realistic reservoir conditions on the length scale of nanometer to millimeters, including local surface properties of solids, heat, and chemical conditions. The lack of inclusion of such conditions limits the validity and precision of state-of-the-art reservoir models. Importantly, a method enabling experimental validation is needed for the verification of such modeling conditions on nanometer to millimeter scales. Moreover, the method for modeling liquid solid interactions and the design of devices for experimentally validating such liquid solid interactions should be interconnected. Bio-engineering for healthcare applications may have many of the same requirements and needs.
While state-of-the-art modeling approaches provide for application-specific channel designs, micro-fluidic designs are not specifically geared towards exploiting structured or functionalized channel surfaces or intra-channel features. Further, while the impact of surface functionalization and patterning on liquid flow has been studied to some extent, previously intra-channel feature or surface pattern engineering for liquid flow has been done at a relatively large, metric scale, well above the micron and sub-micron scale. Thus, microscopic effects that dominate flow through porous materials such as shale or sandstone, are seldom considered.
Thus, there exists a need for devices for studying fluid flow and liquid-solid interactions, especially at the micron and sub-micron level; and more particularly, for transferring a rock pattern onto a device with integrated device functionality, such as local heaters, emitters, detectors and sensors, for quantitative, multi-scale analysis of liquid flow in porous media using a combination of simulation and experimental validation for enhanced oil recovery or for enhanced bio-engineering capabilities.